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frosted butternut

9 Dec

butternut muffins with maple cream cheese frosting

recipe

put a bow on it

4 Dec

We have our Christmas tree, but we haven’t put it up yet.  In the meantime, I’ve been decorating around the house.

I usually hang ornaments from  all the windows, but this year I wanted to do something different.

This year every thing gets a bow -

frames…

doorways…

stairways…

sconces…

plates…

even plates, sconces, and frames…

and when the ribbon is gone, put a garland on it…

advent

1 Dec

The calendar is ready.

The kids were up bright and early and ready to put on the first decoration.  Seriously, cj was up at 5 am.  He came downstairs dressed for the day, asking about getting the house ready for Christmas.  They both love peeking at the days ahead to see what ornament is next.  All the while lulu reminding cj that they have to wait for each day before the ornament goes on the tree.

Their tree will be filled before we know it.

thankful

28 Nov

 

 

 

 

 

 

kitchy kitchen curtains

14 Nov

I went on a little fabric expedition with Jeni and Megan last month to Olive Juice.  I grabbed this Melody Miller fabric within seconds of walking in the door.

The little stars have that 50′s feel that I adore and the little white dishes reminded me of my favorite fire king refrigerator dishes.  I didn’t really know what I would do with it, but while standing at the cutting table I knew I came up with a plan for kitchen curtains so I could see the fabric every day.

I love the ease of curtain clips, but don’t like the  look of the clips so I stitched a band to the back of the header so the clips aren’t as visible.

I also slipped some header tape in the top so the top holds it’s shape.

On these curtains the header tape was just stitched and the bottom.  It should have been tucked into the sides, but I forgot.  oops…don’t tell my mom.

fried green tomatoes

28 Oct

Last Saturday was our last CSA pick up for the season.

We added to our stock pile of potatoes, onions, and butternut squash, along with some greens and a bunch of green tomatoes.

Normally I would have let these sit and ripen, but one night while I was in Salt Lake, Katherine ordered fried green tomatoes for our table.  I loved them so much, I knew what I would have to make with these.

I served ours with a buttermilk dip, but a fresh made marinara would be great too.

fried green tomatoes

5 small green tomatoes

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup panko

1 teaspoon paprika

salt and pepper

oil for frying

Cut stem out of tomatoes and slice into 1/4 inch thick slices, set aside.

In a shallow dish, whisk together the eggs and milk, set aside.

In another shallow dish, mix flour, cornmeal, panko, paprika, salt, and pepper.

Dredge the tomato slices in the flour mixture, then the milk, then again in the flour mixture.  Place the slices in a single layer on a plate until you are ready to fry them.

Pour 1/4″ to 1/2″ of oil into frying pan and heat to 370 degrees and add tomatoes in a single layer.  You will probably have to cook them in two batches.  Cook for 2 minutes on one side, then flip and cook for another 2 minutes.  Remove from pan to drain on paper towel lined platter for a couple of minutes then serve.

buttermilk dipping sauce

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup sour cream

juice of 1/2 lime (and some zest if you like)

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon honey

2 Tablespoons chopped parsley

1 Tablespoon chopped chives

salt

Just whisk all of these together and pour into a serving dish.  If you would like it to be thicker, use less buttermilk and more sour cream.

the cottage, stitched

24 Oct

For months now, I’ve been tossing making throw pillows for the living room to the bottom of the priority project list.  Somehow, this little pillow made it the top of the list this fall, and I’m so happy with how it looks.

I started with a picture of our house in big huge labs color palette generator.

I matched the palette colors with cosmo floss colors over at the workroom.

For the pattern, I took two pictures of the cottage.

I love the oak tree in front yard, but I really didn’t want a big dark tree trunk in the middle of my pillow so I pulled both shots into photoshop elements and overlapped them to get both sides of the front door in one shot.  In elements, I clicked on image, then to mode and chose grayscale.  Once the picture was converted to grayscale, I chose filter, then stylize, then find edges.  This left me with a line drawing style picture I was able to print onto a sheet of transfer-eze that could be stuck onto my background fabric.

When I was done stitching, it looked like this.

At this point, it’s hard to see past the transfer-eze.  Once it was rinsed and pressed I could not wait to get it on the pillow form.

Here it is on the front step

I’m off to make some new kitchen curtains now.

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